We worked John D. MacDonald’s private eye, Travis McGee, into this discussion of King Saul and the young David: Spare the King and Seize the Spareribs. I most recently read The Quick Red Fox, which I was thinking about for the Saul and David post. MacDonald had fine PI prose: “We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody threw the girl off the bridge” (Darker Than Amber (1966)).

In popular culture, business-crime is presented cartoon-fashion. In movies, on television or in novels, businesspeople who are corporate targets of government investigations come across as Snidely Whiplashes with French cuffs. This practice is predictable, its results boring. Not so with the work of the late Boston-based novelist and one-time Assistant United States Attorney George V. Higgins (1939 – 1999). From the George V. Higgins Collection at the University of South Carolina: George V. Higgins (1939-1999) succeeded in nine distinct careers, all of which are documented in his archive. Armed with two English degrees and a law degree, Higgins became a journalist for the Associated Press, The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal,…

The week of Thanksgiving, the Bay Psalm Book is auctioned for $14 million: The little volume of psalms, one of only 11 known to exist out of roughly 1,700 printed by 17th-century Puritans in Massachusetts, went for $14,165,000 at auction on Tuesday. The Bay Psalm Book was published in 1640, more than a century and a half after the first Gutenberg Bibles and 20 years after the Pilgrims had landed at Plymouth. It was the first book turned out by a printing press that had been shipped over from England. The press operator was a locksmith who was apparently learning as he went along: some of the pages were…

Watching on PBS “He Touched Me – The Gospel Music of Elvis Presley,” here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/8474029465 In his later years, he became a caricature of himself, but the language of faith in his “gospel side,” coupled with the music, is remarkable.

If you’ve never checked out on Twitter KimKierkegaardashian (@KimKierkegaard), you should. It’s a mash up of quotes from 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and, naturally, Kim Kardashian. Sharp-witted and intentionally-unintentionally funny. A recent post: “It is said that God allows the sun to shine upon the good & the wicked, to help bring out that summer bronze you’ve been working so hard on.” Very much so.

This is a blog about business crime. We post stories about news, cases, judicial opinions, practical tips and scholarly work regarding white-collar criminal and civil enforcement, grand jury investigations and regulatory compliance. We want to be useful to businesspeople, internal counsel, defense lawyers in private practice, prosecutors and law-school teachers. Sometimes, we write about crime fiction, cocktails and theology. As anyone who’s ever been involved in the defense or prosecution of a white-collar case can testify, all three come in handy. Don’t read us because you’re a criminal. Read us because, some time or other, someone may think you are. Follow me onTwitter — @WhiteCollarWire — or email me at…